The subject matter described herein relates generally to monitoring a wind turbine and, more particularly, to automated monitoring of a wind turbine using acoustic and/or visual data.
A wind farm includes one or more wind turbines which utilize wind energy to generate or produce electrical power. Wind turbines are generally subjected to operational detriments from environmental elements, such as wind shear, extreme temperatures, icing, and oceanic waves, other external elements, internal friction, and general mechanical wear. Operational detriments may eventually cause suboptimal performance, whether temporarily (e.g., rotor blade icing) or indefinitely (e.g., structural damage to a rotor blade).
At least some known methods of monitoring wind turbines detect operational detriments indirectly by detecting symptoms, such as decreased power output and/or inoperability, of a wind turbine. Moreover, because many potential causes exist for such symptoms, determining the root cause of a symptom requires manual inspection by a service technician, introducing undesirable delay and expense before the root cause can be addressed.